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bne December 2021 Eurasia I 63
48tcm. That Russian figure, though, has not been revised to account for usage, wastage, and gas field degradation for many years, and, according to Russian gas sources, is around 38.99tcm as of the end of 2020. Consequently, the Chalous find makes Iran the biggest gas reserves holder in the world.”
Following both the upgrading of the gas reserves estimates in Chalous and spiralling gas prices across
Europe of late, the new stake split in the combined Chalous twin-sites is reportedly as follows: Russia’s Gazprom and Transneft will together hold 40%, China’s CNPC and CNOOC a combined 28% and Iran’s Khazar Exploration and Production Company (KEPCO) 25%.
“Gazprom will have overall responsibility for managing the Chalous development, Transneft will do the transportation
and related operations, CNPC is doing
a lot of the financing and providing the necessary banking facilities, and CNOOC will be doing the infrastructure parts and engineering,” said one quoted source.
Given the likely length of gas recovery at Chalous – and the fact that Russia intends to take less than 10% of it out over the course of its 20-year deal – sources close to the deal estimate the total value of the Chalous gas site at $5.4 trillion, OilPrice.com said.”
tonnes, forcing Uzbekistan to import cement, and the Qizilqumsement plant is working flat out to get cement out to its customers.
In the first eight months of this year Uzbek companies bought a total of 8mn tonnes of cement, up 18.2% year on year and driving the prices up by 2.4% as a construction boom gathered momentum in the same period. But thanks to the production deficit the country had to import 550,000 tonnes of cement from its neighbours in that period.
Qizilqumsement is hoping to do something about that. Earlier this
year the company launched a $112mn investment to add a fourth production line – the first significant investment
in the plant since 1989 – that is slated to come online in December. The new line will add 2.2mn tpy of cement to
its output, bringing the total output to 5.8mn tpy – a bit less than a third of Uzbekistan’s entire cement production.
“The contractors are Russian, Turkish and Chinese, although most of the equipment is German,” says Abduqahhor Salomov, the general director of Qizilqumsement sitting in his modest office drinking tea. “We have mostly financed it from our own funds and the return on investment should take about seven years. There is huge domestic demand. We can’t even meet that. Even with the new capacity there won’t be enough of a surplus to do any exports. Maybe next year.”
The centre of the grounds where the new silo and processing plant is going up is a hive of activity. The ground is
Qizilqumsement was set up in the 1970s but its business is booming thanks to Uzbekistan's strong economic growth.
Uzbekistan’s cement giant Qizilquwvmsement on a roll
Ben Aris in Navoi
Qizilqumsement (QZSM) is of Soviet vintage, set up in 1977, and is the biggest cement maker in Central Asia. If construction is one of the main drivers of economy growth, then the frenetic activity at the cement plant is perhaps the best indicator of the boom that is sweeping the country.
Located outside of the city limits of the industrial town of Navoi and surrounded by flat rocky desert entering the plant’s grounds is a step back in time for anyone that has spent time in the Former Soviet Union (FSU).
At the gate is a wall with the photos
of the previous directors, all of them with sour po-faced poses that are the hallmark of Soviet-era official portraits. Another section has pictures of the best employees of the month with equally serious faces.
Driving into the plant there are three huge beaten silos of the original production standing at the back of the territory that continue to churn out 3.2mn tonnes per year (tpy) of cement entirely for the domestic market. Domestic demand is currently outstripping domestic supply by 6mn
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